The telecommunications network domain is moving towards an IP-based architecture. However, telecommunications networks currently include and/or support several different network types such as traditional circuit-switched telephone networks and more modern IP-based networks. Although these disparate systems are being integrated, subscribers are and will for many years to come, use both legacy services and newly developed IP-based services. The various legacy communication systems utilize different protocols and different subscriber identifiers developed for use with the protocols. This means that subscriber access to the telecommunications network uses multiple types of subscriber identifiers, for example e164, IMSI, and SIP URI etc.
A subscriber may have multiple sessions and multiple services running at the same time. Moreover the subscriber could be using multiple devices and subscriber identifiers to access these services. To come up with a policy decision for shaping a subscriber's traffic (QoS), a complete view of a subscriber's current activities and sessions is desirable. However most legacy services have been developed as closed silo applications, meaning they run as standalone applications which handle traffic and administration, each maintaining a separate version of a subscriber's profile information. Thus different protocols and services are typically treated in separate systems making a complete view of subscriber activity difficult to obtain.